


all things grow

by flybbfly



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 11:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11462373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybbfly/pseuds/flybbfly
Summary: Neil and Andrew move into a new apartment, and Neil adjusts to actually liking the space he lives in.





	all things grow

**Author's Note:**

> this is my commission for audreil for tfcfansgive. she asked for domestic fic, and i wrote andrew & neil moving into a new place. hope you enjoy!

Andrew likes flowers. It's one of the surprises Neil discovers when they move into their second apartment together. He supposes he should have noticed—Andrew's place in Atlanta always had fresh flowers when Neil visited, but Neil assumed they were from fans or something—but it's not until they unpack their new place and Andrew brings fresh-cut sunflowers to sit on their kitchen table and bright peach tulips for the end tables in their living room that Neil puts two and two together.

“I didn't know you were a flower person,” Neil says. He likes the idea of Andrew in a flower shop picking through plants, if only because it's a novel one. “How come you never bought them for our last place?”

“Because you chose to live in a closet, and adding any other life forms would have been cruel,” Andrew replies from where he's busy putting the groceries away. 

Andrew has a point—the old place was a studio that Neil barely spent any time in before Andrew was traded to Minneapolis. Its only furniture was a rickety table Neil ate breakfast on and a mattress and box spring on the floor. Andrew added some stuff to it, a TV and his clothing, but the rest of Andrew's things went into storage for the plain fact that they wouldn't have fit. 

“Right,” Neil says.

Andrew looks around the refrigerator door at him. “There is more in the car.”

It's only a little pointed. Neil grabs the keys from where Andrew dropped them on the counter and fetches the rest of the groceries.

*

Neil has been living in Minneapolis for two years. He moved here right after college for training camp, and then last winter Andrew finally got himself traded here. The year and a half in between those two events was not fun.

“I'm so glad you left that old place,” Dan says in a video chat during which Neil shows her the entire new space. “It was honestly disheartening. Every time I saw it I got worried you'd just morph into a ghost from gloominess overdose.”

“I don't think that can happen, Dan,” Neil says, but she's right. Neil doubts it was the studio's fault. Minneapolis is fine in the summer months, and it was fine that first summer when he was getting to know a new court and new coaches and playing exy all the time, but most of the time between the first frost that October and Andrew's move-in over a year later feels like an unrelentingly grey blur. He barely knows his new teammates. He doesn't know anyone else in Minneapolis.

“Look, though,” Dan says, pointing at something over Neil's shoulder. “A _window_. Actual natural light.” 

The window is something Neil appreciates. Huge, covered in translucent curtain that does the job when it comes to Andrew's fear of heights. Lets in bright light when Neil pushes it open most mornings, at least now, before winter starts. 

“Yeah, it's a great feature.”

“Have you hung out with anyone from your team yet?”

“What?”

“Come on, Neil,” Dan says. “You know I know you. Have a housewarming party or something.”

“You know that's never going to happen.”

Dan grins at him. “Course I do. But at least like, go out with them at a time not dictated by your coach.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Glad to see you're still trained well,” Dan says. “Listen, I have to go. Tell your man I said hello.” 

“You too,” Neil says, even though Dan was mostly being polite and Neil actually means it. He hangs up and looks around.

She's right. It's very nice.

*

“So your thing about adding life forms,” Neil says.

He and Andrew are on their balcony—an actual balcony, not just a fire escape, which was worth the extra couple of hundred dollars rent they're paying per month—with breakfast plates in their laps. Andrew has put flowers out here, too, though they're in pots. Neil has never caught Andrew watering them, but he imagines it takes place while Neil is running every morning. Neil usually comes home to a showered Andrew making coffee in his sweatpants, his hair still wet. 

“What about it?” Andrew says.

It's Neil's favorite time of day. A few minutes in the morning that are just theirs, no other obligations. Sometimes they talk, but more often it's just the two of them sitting in quiet, drinking coffee and eating meal-plan-approved carbs and proteins and fats. Andrew is supposed to be on a cut—the season is about to start—but he keeps ignoring the diet plan and adding copious amounts of sugar to his bowl of fruit and his coffee. 

“We should get a dog.”

“Dogs smell,” Andrew says, which isn't a no. “Why?”

“I don't know,” Neil says. “It could run with me.”

“If you are trying to get me to run with you using pity—”

“It's working?” Neil says, grinning. “But no, I'm not. I just think it'd be fun. Do you have something against dogs?”

It's clear from the way Andrew isn't quite looking at Neil that he does, but he doesn't articulate whatever it is, just pokes his fork at an apricot slice on his plate. 

“What about a cat?” Neil says.

“You can barely take care of yourself,” Andrew says. “You want to add a pet to the mix?”

“Sure.”

It's quiet, and then Andrew says, “Okay. Let's get a cat.”

*

That's what does it, the cat. (Well, cats—they end up with two somehow. Neil is foggy on the details.) Neil comes back from a run one brisk November morning, and Sir bounds over to him, rubbing herself all over Neil's leg.

“She missed you,” Andrew says. 

The sun is just coming up, its light starting to peek in through the white curtain over their window. It casts their living room and kitchen (and Andrew) in oddly ethereal glow, but then, Andrew's presence has never felt entirely real to Neil. He never expected he'd have something so good in his life. It's still hard to believe he does.

“Just her?” Neil says.

Andrew doesn't respond out loud, but he tugs Neil forward by the collar of his jacket to kiss him, lightning fast, on the mouth. 

“You're sweaty,” Andrew complains. “Go shower.”

Neil laughs but doesn't move away. “Hey. I like it here.”

Andrew waits for him to clarify, and when he doesn't, asks, “Minneapolis?”

“This apartment.” 

King joins them now, lazily batting Sir away from Neil's ankles. 

“We've lived here for five months.”

“I know,” Neil says. 

He doesn't know how to explain it. The cats, the flowers—Andrew switched to mums for fall, and now he's added holly, too—the window. Andrew not looking cramped and irritated with the small space. A place he doesn't hate coming back to, doesn't only associate with loneliness and not playing exy.

“No one forced you to live in that shithole,” Andrew says.

“I know. I guess I didn't realize it was making me miserable until it was making you miserable, too.”

Andrew doesn't deny it. He reaches for mugs, pours them both coffees, dumps sugar in his own and adds only cream to Neil's. Then he takes both coffees out to the balcony.

“Andrew, it's freezing,” Neil says, but he follows him out anyway.

They have a nice view from their balcony. Minneapolis is underrated as a city, Neil thinks, because it's pretty even now, with the specter of snow looming. Neil turns to say it to Andrew, but Andrew is closer than Neil thought he was.

“It's cold,” Andrew says.

“Told you so.”

Andrew huffs, and his breath clouds in front of both of them. “Rich.”

“How so?”

“I told you to move a hundred times.”

“I didn't realize,” Neil says. 

“You should listen to me more,” Andrew says. 

He crowds up against Neil and kisses him again. Andrew's lips are cold, but the inside of his mouth isn't, and he tastes like his sickly sweet coffee. It makes Neil smile and spoil the kiss, teeth knocking against Andrew's.

“What?” 

“I don't know,” Neil says. “I just really like it here.”

Andrew props his chin on Neil's shoulder. It'd be a hug if it were anyone else.

“Thank you,” Neil says. 

“For what?”

“For making me move.”

“I didn't make you move,” Andrew says. “I just moved and you followed me.”

Neil laughs. He doesn't know when or how this got easy, but he thinks, standing here in the cold with Andrew, an hour before exy practice and fifteen minutes after finishing a five mile run, both their cats curled within inches of the sliding doors, there isn't anything he would change about his life.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "chicago" by sufjan (tragically he doesnt have a song called minneapolis)


End file.
